Complex Systems in Economics and Where to Find Them

The economy as a whole and most of its constituent parts, like markets, government institutions, firms, or households, are inherently complex conceptual constructions. Micro-level diversity,decentralized interaction, self-organization, adaptation and learning, emergence, and evolution, are some of the fundamental features that the above entities share and that allow to classify them as being complex entities. In a complex economic system, existing structures of interaction are in constant mutation as individual agents contact and influence one another and, by doing so, reshape the macro environment in which socio-economic relations unfold. Notwithstanding the observed pervasiveness of complexity in economics, there are a few areas of economic thought where the discussion on the theme has gained an exceptional relevance. In this article, six of such areas are identified and their complex nature is highlighted and scrutinized. These pertain to:(i) Knowledge interactions and technological innovation;(ii) Corporate design and organizational learning;(iii) Public policies directed at market regulation;(iv) Banking and financial markets;(v) Environmental economics, sustainability,and climate change;and(vi) income inequality.     

Antibiotic resistance is ancient

The discovery of antibiotics more than 70 years ago initiated a period of drug innovation and implementation in human and animal health and agriculture. These discoveries were tempered in all cases by the emergence of resistant microbes. This history has been interpreted to mean that antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria is a modern phenomenon; this view is reinforced by the fact that collections of microbes that predate the antibiotic era are highly susceptible to antibiotics. Here we report targeted metagenomic analyses of rigorously authenticated ancient DNA from 30,000-year-old Beringian permafrost sediments and the identification of a highly diverse collection of genes encoding resistance to β-lactam, tetracycline and glycopeptide antibiotics. Structure and function studies on the complete vancomycin resistance element VanA confirmed its similarity to modern variants. These results show conclusively that antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon that predates the modern selective pressure of clinical antibiotic use.